849 Naval Air Squadron
military unit
849 Naval Air Squadron (849 NAS), also referred to as 849 Squadron, is an inactive Fleet Air Arm (FAA) naval air squadron of the United Kingdom’s Royal Navy (RN).
It most recently operated the Merlin HM2 from February until April 2020.
It was formed during the Second World War as an aircraft carrier based torpedo-bomber, unit, flying missions against Japanese targets in the Far East. Its service since the Second World War has been as an airborne early warning squadron, flying fixed winged Douglas Skyraiders and Fairey Gannets from the Royal Navy's fixed wing carriers from 1952 until 1978, and airborne early warning Westland Sea King helicopters from 1982 to 2018.
History
World War two
849 Naval Air Squadron was established in September 1943 at RNAS Quonset Point (HMS Saker II) located at Naval Air Station Quonset Point, Rhode Island, United States which had been loaned to the Admiralty from October 1942. It was equipped with twelve Grumman Avenger Mk.I torpedo bombers. The squadron moved to RN Air Section Squantum the following month, located at Naval Air Station Squantum, Massachusetts, which from September 1943 had also been loaned to the Admiralty.
The squadron moved to RN Air Section Norfolk in November, located at Naval Air Station Norfolk, Virginia, where lodger facilities for FAA squadrons and an Air Section were granted to the Admiralty. The twelve Grumman Avengers of the 849 squadron were carefully loaded and stored in the hangar of the Ruler-class escort carrier, HMS Khedive. Upon completion of the loading process, HMS Khedive departed for New York to join convoy UT.4a, which left New York on 15 November, as part of Convoy UT.4a and reached the Clyde on 15 November; subsequently, HMS Khedive continued to Liverpoolthe next day to unload.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4644768. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2020, 1952, 1978 and 1982.
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This entry incorporates text from “849 Naval Air Squadron” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.